Happy Life...the Strange Story of Dr. Samuel Milton Archer

 

Dr. Samuel Milton Archer

I knew that Dr. Archer had a very interesting life, but who knew HOW interesting. Dr. Archer was the younger brother of my 3x great grandmother Margaret Archer. He was an early settler in the Salinas Valley in California.  He was married 4 times, twice to the same woman and had a total of 10 children. He became the head of the Monterey County Hospital and a pioneer in the treatment of the ailment once called "dropsy" but now known as edema. 

Samuel grew up in Owen County, Indiana the son of James Milton Archer and Margaret Dunn. Margaret was a member of the pioneer Dunn family who settled the Indiana territory. He was the seventh of ten children.

In 1861 he enrolled as a drummer in the 14 regiment of the Indiana Volunteers and went off to the Civil War. This is where his life takes a fortunate turn. I recently found a feature article written in 2014 by Jim Albanese of the Salinas Californian. Here's how he tells the story:

"But he showed such promise treating wounds and setting bones the Union army permitted him to be discharged from his drumsticks to pursue a medical education" How remarkable!

Samuel got that education and then reenrolled in the 133 Indiana Volunteer Infantry as an assistant surgeon.  That was 1864. Sometime during that period he married his first wife Alma Miranda Lee. Now Dr. Archer served out the remainder of the war and then went for further training in New York. He divorced Alma in 1866.

He married again and divorced pretty quickly from Sarah Maynard. At that point he decided to sign up as a ship's surgeon. Life at sea did not suit him, but luckily he came to that conclusion in San Francisco. 

He was offered the hospital position in 1869, which brought him to Salinas and into contact with a sixteen-year-old Luisa Robinson. Albanese describes her as a spitfire. No doubt considering what followed. They soon had two daughters. I'll let Albanese's version of events tell what followed.

"Archer's job kept him away from home, and Luisa didn't like that. Some of his patients were women and Luisa liked that less.

She accused her husband of all manner of infidelity in front of company. Neighbor Ramona Valenzuela recalled the particularly nasty language Luisa used to berate Archer and how on one visit to the Archer place she found the doctor bleeding from a blow to the head with a candlestick......It all came to a head in November of 1874 when Luisa whacked Archer smack-dab in the forehead with a frying pan."

Remember that in 1874 this would have been a cast iron frying pan. Ouch!

After Dr. Archer recovered from his concussion, he filed for divorce. The divorce was finalized in 1876. By now they had four daughters. 

BUT the story doesn't end there. In May of 1882 Samuel and Luisa got remarried. They went on to have 5 more children. Things seem to have been calmer from this time on. Dr. Archer continued his practice and his stewardship of the hospital. He raised his large family. He took care of his aged mother who had come out to join them. He died in 1902 at the age of 60. Oddly the contributing illness to his death was the very disease he had pioneered treatment for- dropsy or edema.  Luisa died in the 1920's. 

Setting the Scene - The Archers in 1906

Market Street, San Francisco, April 14, 1906

I love the idea of capturing a small slice of life from the times in which my ancestors lived. The wonderful Lisa Louise Cooke has remastered an earlier podcast where she suggests using silent films as a way of putting the lives of your ancestors in context; looking at life at the time and appreciating early films your ancestors may also have enjoyed. You can listen to the whole podcast and read the show notes here. The still above is from a movie called "A Trip Down Market Street" and it was filmed just four days before the earthquake and fire. As I listened to Lisa describe the film in the podcast I realized, "I had an ancestor living in San Francisco at this time!"

OK...so I need to set the scene for my cousins. This was not a direct ancestor. I've made a little tree that shows how we are related.

So my three times great grandmother, Margaret Archer, had a younger brother Samuel Milton Archer who became a doctor and moved west to the Salinas Valley around Monterrey. He had two wives and a very large family. His eldest son, Aretas Allen Archer, became a San Francisco policeman.

For obvious reasons I couldn't find a 1906 directory, but he shows up in both 1905 and 1907 living with his sister Agnes Archer and her husband Christian Melin, a master mariner.

The Melins moved to Church Street briefly after the earthquake, but by the 1910 census they were back on Fair Oaks Street. This is between Noe Valley and the Mission District near Mission Delores Park. Did they "camp out" in the park after the earthquake?  Who knows? The area south of Market Street shook pretty hard. 

You'll notice that I've captured a still with a policeman in it. It's a little tip of the hat to Aretas Archer.  Go to YouTube and watch this film all the way through. It's just a little bit of light-hearted fun before a very grim chapter in San Francisco history, but it gives you a glimpse of a time gone by.